Lisa Reihana and
Jean-Gabriel Charvet
SAN FRANCISCO—Lisa Reihana’s epic video artwork
in Pursuit of Venus infected—a recent joint acquisition
70
by the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco and the
Los Angeles County Museum of Art—is being exhibited
for the fi rst time in the continental United States at the
de Young Museum in San Francisco. On view until January
5, 2020, the extraordinary panoramic video animates
Reihana’s representation of eighteenth-century
views of the Pacifi c Islands. It is being presented alongside
the historic French scenic wallpaper upon which
it is based—Les Sauvages de la Mer Pacifi que (Native
University Art Museum November 2, 2019, through
February 2, 2020, features more than eighty works of
global art, from antiquity to the present, and includes
paintings, drawings, prints, sculptures, photographs,
and multimedia. Collectively, these illuminate the role
that art plays in shaping our perceptions and experiences
of illness and healing. Provocative cross-cultural
juxtapositions throughout the exhibition consider
from a visual perspective both broad issues and
specifi c historical events, such as the bubonic plague
and the AIDS crisis. The selected works of art examine
societal anxiety around pandemics and infectious
disease, respond to mental illness, present the hopes
and dangers associated with childbirth, and explore
the complexities of care.
LEFT: Old woman and infant.
Maya; Mexico or Guatemala.
AD 600–800.
Ceramic, traces of Maya blue pigment.
Princeton University Art Museum, gift
of Gillett G. Griffi n, inv. 2003-26.
LEFT: Marcus Leatherdale
(American, b. Canada,
1952). AIDS, 1988.
Gelatin silver print. 32.9 x 29.8 cm.
Princeton University Art Museum, gift
of James Kraft, Class of 1957,
inv. 2006-423.
Peoples of the South Pacifi c) by Jean-Gabriel Charvet
and produced by Joseph Dufour et Cie in 1804–1805.
The wallpaper’s multiple panels begin with scenes of
the Nootka on the left and, in the course of twenty
panels, pan more or less east to west, concluding in
Palau on the right. Reihana reimagines this wallpaper
as a vast digital scroll that moves through live-action
vignettes placed within an idealized background inspired
by Charvet’s work and asks viewers, “Who tells
the story and how do images, past and present, shape
our understanding of history?” Reihana has revised the
narrative to critique notions about Pacifi c culture and
history that originated with the European voyages of
exploration during the eighteenth-century Age of Enlightenment
and persist even today. These two works
are supplemented with an eighteenth-century folio of
engravings depicting scenes from James Cook’s expeditions
in the Pacifi c Ocean.
States of Health
PRINCETON—Throughout history and across cultures,
concepts of illness and healing have been given
concrete form through art. States of Health: Visualizing
Illness and Healing, on view at the Princeton
TOP: Lisa Reihana
(b. Aotearoa, 1964),
in Pursuit of Venus infected
(detail), 2015–2017.
Ultra HD video, color, 7.1 sound,
64 min.
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco,
museum purchase, Phyllis C. Wattis
Fund for Major Accessions,
inv. 2019.21.
Image courtesy of the artist and
Artprojects and New Zealand at
Venice, with support of Creative New
Zealand and NZ at Venice Patrons and
Partners.
ABOVE: Jean-Gabriel
Charvet (1750–1829),
Sauvages de la Mer
Pacifi que, panels 1–10
(Nootka Island to New
Zealand), 1804–1805.
Woodblock print on paper.
170 x 1060 cm.
Manufactured by Joseph Dufour
et Cie.
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.
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